As I Remember Him

Zinsser writes his autobiography in the third person, playing both the somewhat disdainful biographer of "R.S." and R.S. himself. The conceit is characteristically weird, unnecessary, and extremely well done and funny, but I think it also is a distancing device for a man who doesn't really want to share anything personal about himself. Which makes for a frustrating autobiography!

In the rare moments when he does talk concretely about his life, the book is extremely fun (his account of his abortive attempt at a private medical practice, for example, is laugh-out-loud funny). But he spends most of the book and in long discursive discussions of the issues of his day, which unfortunately tend to end up either boring (unless you are very interested in his views on the state of medical pedagogy in 1940), or euphemistically "of their time." While the book is not surprisingly racist, sexist, or eugenicist for the era, and I do think Zinsser has some amount of critical thinking on these fronts, it is still ultimately racist, sexist, and eugenicist.

So, instead of the boring bits and the yikes bits, let us remember the part where he pretends to have rabies, bites a classmate, and is only stopped when someone dumps a tank of sea urchins on him. Or skip this one and just read Rats, Lice, and History.